Envy These Women Please

Differentiating from the usual Most Powerful Women list, Forbes did a little niching to come up with a slideshow of women billionaires they envy most :

"Imagine for a moment what it would be like to be a billionaire. No more picking up after the kids, doing dishes, worrying about how much a dress costs or pinching pennies to save for an amazing vacation. For the women on Forbes' new list of the world's billionaires, that dream is a reality. But it's not just their 10-figure fortunes that make us envious. Some of these women are famous; some wield enormous power; some have fascinating careers. Some have all three."

Is it just me, or inherited wealth is boring right from the very beginning? The emergence of the spoon people, or so they say -- "Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon" Edward Morgan Forster. A week ago I participated in a discussion about power, most importantly one trying to define power and we ended up with several states of power - positional power, the C-level executives, expertise power, or the revenge of the underestimated walking case studies, and networking power. It's all a cyclical process like pretty much anything in life.

U.K's Latest Military Satellite System

The U.K military is about to upgrade their Skynet 4 satellite system to Skynet 5 :

"Four steerable antennas give it the ability to focus bandwidth on to particular locations where it is most needed - where British forces are engaged in operations. Its technologies have also been designed to resist any interference - attempts to disable or take control of the spacecraft - and any efforts to eavesdrop on sensitive communications. An advanced receive antenna allows the spacecraft to selectively listen to signals and filter out attempts to "jam" it."

Among the many features the new system introduces, two are worth mentioning - it's targeted bandwidth capability where it's needed and the sort of DENY:ALL upgraded receive antenna to avoid jamming. Now pray China won't take it down, or let the debris (conveniently) take care of the rest -- so vulnerable it makes you want to establish a space warfare code of conduct.

Armed Land Robots

After seeking to dominate the air, it's time defense contractors turn back to innovating on the ground, especially when we speak of armed and remotely controlled robots. Crucial for both, reconnaissance and guerilla warfare situations, movement flexibity as well as payload capacity is what adds more value to these robots. An Israeli based defense contractor Elbit Systems recently introduced The Viper :

"The Viper, which is about a foot long and weigh approximately five pounds, is powered by a special electrical engine and operated by remote control or according to a program implanted in its 'brain' in advance. It is capable of climbing stairs, getting past obstacles and at the same time checks what is going on around it by means of a system of sensors. Equipped with a special nine-millimeter caliber Uzi machine gun, on which a laser pointer has been installed. The Viper is carried to the battlefield by a soldier on his back in a special carrier. When it is necessary to infiltrate a building safely where, for example, armed terrorists are hiding, the soldier lowers it to the ground, turns it on and from that moment controls it from a distance."

I'm very interested in the possibility for a 360 degree view, it's noise generation level, the variety of terrains its supports, and most importantly - would it put itself back on its "feet" if it inevitably turns upside down. See, you wouldn't want your pricey attack toy acting like a cheap remotely controlled car toy, would you? Engadget has a photo of Viper.

Here's a recommended article on the history of armed aerial UAVs, as well as a recent story on beam energy weapons, the vomit beam in this case.